I wish to share the latest project I have just finished, it is Festool Style MFT with a 20mm holes on the entire table top of 48* X 27" on a 4" square grid. The boring of all these holes was done with a 20mm Carbide Forstner Bit, after carefully drawing a perfect 4" grid on a 19mm MDF board. This board is mounted on a 45mm square 8020 extrusion, which has mitre corners, so that the clamps and other connectors can be inserted from all corners. The 20mm dia holes would take all bench dogs of 20mm and also those plastic clamping pieces which come with Black and Decker Workmate, in combination with Festool Special MFT clamps (which are sold in India my Hefele India Ltd.
It is pretty simple to make, as long as one takes great care while drawing the 4" grid on the table top (festool uses 96mm grid, as it is cut with CNC or multiboring machines, which have got 32mm spacing between two boring heads (centre to centre), I choose to make 100mm grid, as it is easier to mark exact 100mm and the boring is done manually. You have a choice of making with a router or a vertical drill stand. As I was not sure of safety of using a carbide Forstner bit on a router, I used my Einhell Red 18volts Li Ion cordless Impact Drill. You can also make a acrylic template of say 10mm thickness having a grid of 5x5 holes or 3x5 holes and keep boring thro the template. As I am making just one table top, i did not go thro the template route, instead spent lot of time, carefully drawing the grid and punching the centre hole on all points of intersection of 4" spaced lines on X and Y axis and bored each hole, by carefully parking the centre tip of the Forstner bit on the punched hole and keeping the drill vertical with the help of a T square held next to its body.
These are the few photos showing the home made MFT and also some items clamped on it using Festool, special MFT clamps and Workmate bench dogs.
Very well executed project.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely impeccable
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